


TS 1893 
.H68 
Copy 1 




ilTHEHlSTORrOF 
> THE THING, 




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JHE HISTORY OF 
* THE THING w 

THE RELATION Or THE RAW *K 



PRODUCT TO "i HE EINI5HED 
MATERIAL 



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PUBLISHED BY ^^^ 
HODGMAN RUBBER COMPANY 
NEW YORK 
BOSTON m*. .**> CHICAGO 



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Copyright 1896, by Hodgman Rubber Company. 




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the rub/' 



'HEY gave it trie name in Ben- 
jamin Franklin's time, one hun- 
dred years or more ago, when the 
only use which was made of the sub- 
stance was to rub out pencil marks. The 
designation of this one insignificant use has 
been applied to the entire product of the article. 
Whatever used for, whether it rubs or does not rub, it's all 
rubber. A curious bit of word making here. Some of 
the Shakespearian cipher discoverers ought to study up 
on rubber. "What's in a name?" "Ay, there's 
The native name is Caoutchouc. 
Don't try to say it — just sneeze. 
Note the change of a century* 
This is an age of rubber. From 
infancy all through life we depend 
upon it at every turn, make use 
of it in a thousand and one 
ways. Young America drinks 
his milk from a bottle with a rubber nipple, 
stares in wonder at his rubber rattle, cuts 
his teeth on a rubber ring, wears a bib of 
rubber, is bathed in a rubber tub, 
combed with a rubber comb, amused 
with rubber toys by day, and tucked 
into his little rubber bed by night. 
If he survives the chastening of 







the schoolmaster's rubber ruler, the hazard of 
rubber sling-shots, and the casualties of rubber 
football, and grows to be a business man, he 
rides down-town on a rubber tire, talks through 
a rubber-insulated telephone wire, dips his 
ink from a rubber stand, signs his name 
with a rubber stamp, and copies his letters 
with rubber sheets* If it rains he dons his 
rubber hat, coat and shoes, lights his cigar from 
its rubber case with match from a rubber safe, 
wipes his feet on a rubber mat, presses the rubber - 
bell-button, and Bridget, with rubber hair-pins in 
her hair, opens the door for him. If he falls over- 
board from the ferry-boat, they heave him a rubber 
life-preserver. If his house takes fire, firemen clad in 
rubber turn on the water from a rubber hose— and 
rubber saves his home* In old age, he takes to rubber 
cushions, and in a cosey corner where rubber weather- 
strips shut out the draught, he plays a quiet rubber of whist. 
He wards off rheumatism with rubber hot-water bags ; then 
makes his last will and testament, and fastens it with a 
rubber band. 

Rubber protects the coachman j on his 

box, the policeman on his beat, the en 

gineer in the swamps, the 




-.-i' 



steamship captain on the 
bridge, the life-saving patrol 







■ 



A V 





on shore, the soldier in camp, the miner 
in the coal-shafts, the diver in the depths 
of the sea. A woman does up her hair 
with a rubber comb ; rubber belting turns 
a million factory wheels. This 
is hardly a beginning of what 
can be told about rubber. Suspenders, soap cups, 
cuspidors, coin-mats, buffers, drinfcing-cups, wagon 
springs, wringing machines, toy monkeys 
— barely to name the things made of rubber 
would be to make a surprising catalogue of the 
necessities and conveniences, the comforts, 
luxuries and refinements, of our every-day 
life. 
This is indeed the rubber age. It is a day 
of development. Civilization and rubber go 
hand in hand. You may determine a people's place 
in the scale by the amount of rubber it uses — in 
particular by its rubber dress-goods. 

The rubber trade is one of the leading 
industries of the world. The raw material 
is exported chiefly from tropical countries, 
the rubber belt stretching for five hundred 
miles on either side of the equator around 
the globe. Our chief sources of supply 
are Africa, Central America and Brazil, where 
Para is the great rubber port of the world. 








Prosaic and unpoetical as may appear 
a chunk of Para rubber, it is of romantic 
origin. It comes to tts from the country of 
the Amazon, in whose vast, mysterious 
forests the rubber tree contrasts its glossy 
foliage with the frondage of feather palms, 
where swinging llianos droop over wine- 
colored rivers, where rare orchids glow in Ihe hushed 

twilight, gorgeous butterflies 

flit in the sunlight, birds with 

wings of fire flash amid 

the branches, and monkeys scream 

in prognostication of the coming 

storm. It is a land of strange 



S§1 

Vegetation and of yet stranger people^ 
a dusky race, untamed, independent and 
uncivilized. 

White men cannot live and labor 
in the rubber land, therefore the work of 
gathering is done by natives. The process 
is an interesting one t in its 
first stage not unlike the tapping of 
a maple-sugar tree in Vermont. The milky 
juice or sap of the caoutchouc tree is con- 
tained in the middle layer of the bark> In 
the evening a deep horizontal incision is 
made in the bark, at a point near the 






base of the tree ; then a vertical slit 
is cut above, with other oblique 
incisions leading into it. Little shallow 
clay dishes that have been baked 
in the sun are fastened to the \ ^f* 

tree below these cuts, being \ 
secured to the trunk with soft 
clay. During the night the sap flows 
into the vessels and in the morning it is collected* Here 
the resemblance to maple-sugaring ceases. A wooden pad- 
dle with a handle about three feet long is dipped into the 
liquid caoutchouc, withdrawn, and held over a 

vessel in which certain kinds of nuts 

are brewing, the smoke of which 

causes certain ingredients of the 

sap to evaporate, while the milk 

coagulates in a thin shell on the sur- 
face of the paddle-blade. The paddle is 
dipped again and again, and dried, and' the operation is 
repeated until the deposit of caoutchouc on the blade has 
formed a ball or biscuit too heavy to handle. "When^ 
this deposit is of the required size, it is cut 
open, and the paddle blade or mould removed. 
The biscuit of rubber is then hung up and 
dried, and is ready for shipment. Care must 
be taken to keep the rubber sap free from 
impurities, and from this very first stage, all 




Rubber Biscuits 




through the processes of its industrial 
treatment, each successive step must 
be attended with extreme care. There 
is rubber, and rubber. The quality de- 
pends upon the make. 

It is a curious fact — and it illus- 
trates Solomon's wise saw that there is 
nothing new under the sun — that almost 
the earliest recorded mention of rubber is of 
its use as a protection from rain. Torquemada, 
the Spanish historian who wrote in J 6 15, tells us 
that the soldiers in the New World smeared the juice 
of a certain tree on their cloaks to render them water- 
proof. Strange, is it not, that from that date to this the 
world should have waited over two centuries for the appli- 
cation of that old idea to a practical utility? The highest 
perfection of the manufacture of rubber in all its variety of 
forms has been attained in our own day in the adaptation 
of it to the waterproofing of the wearing apparel known 
as the HODGMAN MACKINTOSH. 

The evolution of the rubber waterproof of to-day — 
light, convenient, stylish, effective— was ex- 
tremely slow, even 
after the prob- 
lem of produc- 
ing it had been 
taken up 





m 



earnest. The early attempts — by early we 
mean at a period not prior to the 70's — were 
crude ; and many a failure was recorded before 
there was provided what was considered, at 
that day, a practicable garment. Those first 
productions were not only unsightly, but they 
were malodorous as well ; and because the mate- 




: 









yj=s 



mi Jmfnkflt found 

t— _j^y f.r'ifgf ' a\ looks 

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common heavy sheeting, which 
was coated with a black rubber 



rial was improperly prepared, 
they were easily rendered 

hard or soft by changes of climate. 
fji The first material used was 

fiiAR if 

K surface. "When a person put 

on one of these heavy coats, he 

found the weight intolerable, the 

unbearable, and the wearing 

unsatisfactory. Even when 

j^jS^iM fancy linings were adopted 

\ Quiet Rubber of Whist. f° f tne inside, the makers seemed to think 

that a rubber garment, unlike every other 
one worn by civilized men and women, need have no style, 
shape, nor fit. 
Under such con- 
ditions waterproof 
garments failed to find 



Old Style Water Proof. 








Rubber Gloves. 



a very popular favor. They were 
articles of dire necessity reluctantly as- 
sumed on occasion ; but that was about the 
most that could be said for them* 

Even the imported mackintosh 
or double texture water- 
proof was but a partial 
improvement* This was com- 
posed of an outer surface of cloth* 
then a layer of india rubber* 
and then an inside lining of 
fancy cloth* But the slouchy 
appearance of the sack-like 
cut and the intolerable 
odor due to the improper 
foreign vulcanization were 
sufficient objections to pre- 




" Foreign mackintoshes became stiff and hard." 

vent a general adoption of the imported goods* 

Moreover* it was found that 

after being in this country 

a few| weeks the foreign 

mackintoshes either became 

stiff and hard* or fell apart at 

the seams* and were then of r 

course absolutely worthless. 

The American climate did 
not agree with them. This wats 



■ 




Rubber Camping Outfit. 





K libber Bath Till). 



just as well, for, as the event proved, 
American ingenuity and enter- 
prise were amply competent to 
cope with the problem, and to 
supply to Americans American 
made goods, of a quality unequaled 
in the world. 

The Hodgman 
Rubber Company, 
who were the 
successors of 
the firm founded by 
Daniel Hodgman in J 838, 
and who had attained a position of pre- 
eminent leadership among the rubber 
manufacturers of the United States, had 
been makers of the old-style garments ; 
,j and they had improved these in 
lightness, fit and finish, so far as such 
improvement could be made without 

a radical departure from the ap- 
proved methods then in vogue. 
But there came a time, 
about ten years ago, when 
the Company resolved to create 
Rubber Drinking: Cup. a complete revolution in the 
manufacture of rubber apparel. The ideal 




x 




,,■1 



rubber coat or cloak, said 
they, is a waterproof gar- 
ment, "which in appearance, 
=Jfy in comfort of wear, in quality 
||^|P and in style, shall not be dif- 
111©) ' llWw cfcnt from an y othef high-grade 
\ J ■rjHp^ clothing which is not waterproof* 

To say a thing is sometimes easier 
^.\^jjgj% than to do it. To resolve is simple ; 
but to accomplish there is the test. 

The Hodgman Rubber Company did 

For Walking i.e. T , 

not succeed at first. It was not an easy 

thing they had undertaken; had it been, their subsequent 
triumphant success would not so have set them apart from, 
and in advance of, all the other manufacturers of rubber gar- 
ments in the world. For, devising now one ex-r \, '; 
pedient and then another, overcoming eadh | 
new obstacle as it presented itself, they-^LJ : 



last produced the result they had set out 
to gain— the perfect HODGMAN 
MACKINTOSH of to-day. 

The first step was to find a remedy 
for the four defects then existing in 
all rubber clothing— the unpleasant 
odor, the want of pliability, the 
ungainliness, and the propensity to 
wet through. The first two faults 




i 
After the Storm. 








were overcome by the adoption of a 
new and careful system of vulcanization. 
Quality thus assured, now for looks, 
and for a system of making by which 
the completed goods should be abso- 
lutely impenetrable by moisture. 
To secure tastefully designed, well 
put together, stylish and becoming 
waterproof clothing, they did precisely 
what the manufacturers of other clothing do: 
they engaged the best workmanship procurable in the cloth- 
ing trade, the most artistic designers, and most skillful cutters 
and operators. Under the system thus introduced, every 
garment is carefully planned and made, 
every seam as carefully stitched, 
and the entire work as 
neatly done as in the fin- 
ishing of an expensive 
overcoat or a costly cloak. 
The requirements of 
good taste having been 
met, but one more es- 
sential remained ; 
that was to make 
the garment abso- 
lutely dry. Before this, 
no matter how carefully 





a sewed waterproof coat might be made, 
it would admit moisture at the seams ; 
capillary attraction would lead it through 
the threads of the stitches* To remedy 
this in the HODGMAN MACK- 
INTOSH the seams are completely 
covered on the inside by a process which 
makes them absolutely watertight. 
Simple ? Yes ; so was Columbus's egg* 
u Simple," when you think of it. It's the 
thinking that's genius. It's the concep- 
tion and application of one " simple thing " 
Golf Caue a ft er another that has made the HODGMAN 

MACKINTOSH different from all others under the sun. 
Odorless, light and pliable, comfortable to wear and 
pleasing to the eye, perfectly waterproof, — these are the 
qualities which distinguish the Hodgman goods, which 
make them an absolute protection for the daintiest dress 
goods they are worn to shield. 

With the old drawbacks and 
objections removed, the public has , 
taken up the rubber garment. 
Fashion has stamped the seal of 
her approval upon the Hodg- 
man Mackintosh. To wear it 
is good form. It is the wet 
weather dress of those who 







Unpacking' the ilnbber. 




care for their 
personal ap- 
pearance and 
for the com- 
fort of them- 
selves and 
others. 

If we fol- 
low the crude rubber from the forest to the factory, we 
shall find there an interesting study of its gradual develop- 
ment, through a series of processes, from the biscuit form 
to the perfected article of dress. 

When the cases of rubber are opened, the experienced 
unpackers handle it with precisely as much caution as they 
might observe in the rubber forest itself, for centipedes 
and other unlovely creatures of the Tropics are often 
brought to the factory with the rubber ca/goes, and after 
their involuntary journey of thousands of miles they are 
quite as lively, pugnacious, and deadly as in Brazil. 

The first care in the factory is to cleanse the material 

of all impurities. It 
is put through a 
crushing machine, 
whose rollers tear 
it apart; and trie 
operation is re- 
peated in vary- 





ing forms until 
the product is 
perfectly pure 
and consistent. 
It is softened by 
the admixture of 
ingredients which reduce it to a dough. This dough is 
spread upon the rollers of a heavy calendering machine, 
between which is passed the cloth to be treated, and as the 
fabric passes between the rollers the rubber adheres to it. 
The product is a long piece of cloth, upon one side having 
a coating of rubber gum, which is so nicely and so evenly 
adjusted as to be perfectly proof to moisture. 

The next process sees this cloth run through other 
rollers, which press upon the gum side another piece of 
cloth — -the fancy inner lining; and when this comes 
from the machine, we have a piece of goods consisting of 
three distinct layers — the outside cloth, the rubber, the in- 
side cloth. It is a fabric which is solid, firm and strong, 
yet as soft, as pliable, and as durable as was the original 
cloth. 

The material is then vulcanized by the novel Hodgman 
process, to which allu- 
sion has been made, 
and the goods are 
ready to be made 
up. 




\X 



The Hodgman Mackintosh Factory is in effect an im- 
mense and perfectly equipped clothing factory, with cutting 
rooms, sewing rooms, and finishing rooms; and the in- 
dustry is managed on the approved lines of a great cloth- 
ing establishment of the best class. The one distinctive 
feature, however, is the extreme care exercised to prevent the 
unnecessary pricking of the cloth with needle-holes, for 
every needle-hole means a tiny aperture which the moisture 
will search out and find. 




Finally comes the distinctive process employed in the 
Hodgman factory, by which the seams themselves are 
water-proofed; and the beautiful garment is delivered in 
its perfected condition, ready for the wearer. 

The output of the factory is as varied as it is extensive. 
Whatever may be the prevailing fashion in cloth goods as 
to pattern or style, for ladies or for gentlemen, it is reproduced 




in the Hodgman Mackintosh, and so 
reproduced that the presence of the rub- 
ber in it is known only by the service 
it performs. 

The high qualities of the Hodgman 
Mackintosh have made it famous. The 
name is known throughout the United 
States, "Wherever a garment is found bearing the name of 
HODGMAN, it may be depended upon as a perfect piece of 
work. Hodgman goods are the standard. That is true, not 
only of the Hodgman Mackintosh, but of every rubber prod- 
uct that bears the Hodgman mark; for 
in their notable success with the Hodg- 
man Mackintosh, the firm have only 
repeated in a new field their achieve- 
ments in every branch of the rubber trade. 
And so, after all, is not the most 
interesting and instructive part of our 
little booklet the testimony it affords anew 
that American ingenuity and enterprise 
and business acumen may always be re- 
lied upon to supply to Americans Ameri- 
can-made goods which are the most 
perfect productions of industrial processes? 

A Hodgman Mackintosh is a garb which Columbia 
herself or Uncle Sam might be proud to wear in a pelting 
rain. 





HODGMRN'S MACKINTOSHES 

MAY BE EOUND KY ANY 
riRST CLASS ESTABLISHMENT 
IN THE UNITED STATES, 
ir MORE DETAILED INFOR- 
MATION 15 DESIRED WRITE 
TO THE ------- 

HODGMAN RUBBER COMPANY 

NEW YORK 
BOSTON CHICAGO 



BERDAN AND 
REDCLIFFE « 
DESIGNERS 
AND PRINT- 
ERS « * 156 
FIFTH AVE- 
NUE « N. Y. 



J 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



018 373 627 9 • 



